Conclusion: With Heart in Mind

The world is rich in potential, as are we who live within it. We are endowed with astounding gifts like the ability to think, speak, be logical, cooperate, care. And since we have free will, it is entirely in our hands to decide how to put our many gifts of heart and mind to work.

The Mussar teachers are perfectly clear in identifying that the primary aspect of a human being is the spiritual essence that lies within. Our bodily makeup is determined by our DNA, which overlaps closely with that of chimpanzees. Our emotions and desires are really not much different from those of dogs and cats. Many animals have intelligence and some even have rudimentary forms of speech. The primary thing that sets us apart is our spiritual nature, and fulfilling our uniquely human destiny involves realizing the potential of the soul. “A person’s primary mission in the world is to purify and elevate the soul,” is how the Mussar teacher Rabbi Yechezkiel Levenstein put it.¹

Some people dedicate their lives to their bodies, whether perfecting them in the gym or on the sports field or indulging their senses. Others live in a world of the mind, stressing the intellect. For still others, it may be the pursuit of beauty or expression. There are people who pour themselves into community service, social action, politics. Some orient their lives to accumulating wealth and possessions. It is so clear that we can spend the gifts of our lives almost any way we choose. Yet committing all of who we are and what we have to our soul-life is the most uniquely human way to live. It makes the most of our potential, because, from a Jewish perspective, it involves all of ourselves—body, mind, emotions, desires, aesthetics, community, and so on.

The Jewish view is that holiness is the highest human possibility to which we can aspire. The Torah gives us that guideline in no uncertain terms: “You shall be holy,” it says in several places and several ways. There is no aspect of the world that does not have the potential to be holy; it all depends on how that aspect is used. And there is no part of ourselves that can be neglected in seeking holiness, as if we could claim to have cleaned our garden when we had only uprooted half of the weeds. In no time they would be everywhere again.

The founder of the Novarodok school of Mussar, Rabbi Yosef Yozel Hurwitz, offers a clear analogy to dispel the illusion that a person could be pure in the house of worship and crooked in the marketplace, for example. He says that’s like trying to purify your kitchen one utensil at a time. No sooner would something be cleansed than it would be defiled again by contact with the unwashed things around it.

The pursuit of holiness calls on us, not to withdraw from the material and worldly dimensions of life, but rather to apply the desires of the body in holy ways, use our possessions honestly and fairly, express our creativity in ways that don’t harm or demean others, engage the intellect in things that have a valuable impact on self and other, and so on. That’s the path we have been exploring in this book—there are so many chapters because our lives have many dimensions, and each requires its own guidance.

The pathway we have been following doesn’t lead up to a cave in the mountains or to a hut in the desert but clears the way to holiness right within the world of business, the life of the mind, our sense of humor, our egos, our desires, our aspirations, and all the other topics we have covered. Those are our gifts; we have been learning how to use them well in the light of thousands of years of Jewish experience. There is no place to seek holiness other than where you are right now.

If I am to be precise, however, the original source that inspired this book and that provided all the methods we have explored doesn’t speak of holiness. It speaks of acquiring Torah. What’s the connection between holiness and the steps to personal transformation we have explored in the name of acquiring Torah?

The methods of personal practice opened up for you in this book mark out the way toward holiness. We have been focusing on the path, because the goal is a given. Judaism draws its wisdom for living from the Torah, and the Torah couldn’t be clearer in highlighting and underlining that holiness is the beacon toward which we should orient our lives.

The holiness that the Torah directs us to seek won’t be found in a pot at the end of the rainbow but is a hidden treasure buried within each of us. When you walk the pathway laid out in this book, it doesn’t provide you holiness, it removes the obstacles to the holiness that is already and inherently abundant within you. Too much engagement in business is an obstacle. Being egotistical is an obstacle. Excessive or quick anger is an obstacle. Judging others negatively is an obstacle. Whether stated in the positive or the negative, every method explored here has as its purpose to remove a barrier that obstructs the light of holiness that glows within you from shining into your life and through you into the world.

Not every method in this book applies to you, because not everyone has all the same obstacles to holiness. Some will be intensely relevant, others moderately so, some little at all. Knowing yourself and what stands in the way of your own purification and elevation is essential, as that will guide you to give special focus to practicing the transformative methods that your life needs more than others. That’s how you use your mind to develop your heart.

The commandments found in the Torah are the obligations of the religious life, and we have to wonder why it might be that the main lists of commandments do not include “You shall be holy.” It sounds a lot like a commandment, but in fact it isn’t. Again, the Alter of Novarodok, Rabbi Yosef Yozel Hurwitz, offers us an insight: Sometimes things that are stated like commandments actually are not that; they are really just good advice.²

In the case of holiness, the directive to pursue that goal is best understood as good advice, because unlike a commandment, advice leaves the choice in our hands. No one can really convince you to make holiness your goal. No one can make you do the practices in this book. You have to want to. You have to hear a call from deep within that is reverberating with these words. Only your own motivation will propel you along on the journey.

There’s no hitchhiking on the spiritual path. There are no shortcuts to holiness. It’s a stairway to heaven, not an elevator. The methods we have drawn upon were pointed out for us 2,000 years ago. I’ve done my best to lay them out clearly in the preceding chapters. Only you can take the next step.